Intermountain Healthcare, a leader in hospital-at-home, is expanding its hospital-at-home program to patients with COVID-19. The expansion is part of the Utah-based hospital system’s effort to provide hospital-level care for patients who meet certain clinical and non-clinical criteria.
Intermountain is partnering with Castell, a comprehensive healthcare company that helps organizations transition to value-based care and improve patient outcomes. Castwell is also part of the Intermountain Healthcare family.
Last year, Intermountain had success releasing selected and stabilized COVID-19 patients into hospital-level care at home. That paved the way for letting other COVID-19 patients receive care at home.
“Once we understood enough about the disease process, we began treating patients directly admitted from the ER as well as very early discharges from the hospital,” Nathan Starr, DO, internal medicine physician and medical director for Intermountain at Home, told McKnight’s Home Care Daily. “With the recent COVID surge due to the Delta variant, we have seen an increase in the number of COVID admissions both from the ER and as early discharges. Our current rolling average census for HLCAH COVID patients is higher than our COVID peak last winter.”
Intermountain will identify patients who need hospitalization, but could benefit from receiving hospital-level care at home. Those patients must also have an insurance plan that has a value-based arrangement with Intermountain.
The service will also treat patients with conditions such as congestive heart failure, kidney-related conditions, cancer and some infections.
Intermountain is a nonprofit healthcare system with 24 hospitals and 215 clinics serving Utah, Idaho and Nevada.
